Hot Topics:

Theater & Dance

Lyons evacuees find shelter at church; mourn devastation to their town

By Sadie GurmanThe Denver Post

Posted:
09/14/2013 05:45:17 PM MDT

Updated:
09/14/2013 05:52:25 PM MDT

A residential neighborhood and a connecting road in Lyons, Colo., are cut in two by flood waters as flooding continues to devastate the Front Range and thousands are forced to evacuate with an unconfirmed number of structures destroyed Friday, Sept. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/John Wark)

As hundreds of people continued to leave the town of Lyons on Saturday by National Guard convoy or their own packed cars, they gathered at LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont.

Evacuees added their names to lists so that officials could keep a running inventory of who was still unaccounted for.

The hallways of the massive church were filled with donated blankets and bottled water, food and bedding. Cots populated a conference room, where more than 100 people planned to sleep.

Their immediate needs were met. But their anxiety was building, despite floodwaters that had receded for the time being.

"We're just trying to figure out the next step," said Audra Vasquez, whose daughter, Rutha, wiggled in her arms. "You start to think about the long term and it becomes overwhelming."

She started to cry.

" It's not even one day at a time, it's one hour at a time," said her sister, Christina Vasquez.

They were worried about their father, who had been insistent on staying in their childhood home with no power and no water in the mountains above Lyons. He had been working with heavy equipment helping others in the community. His daughters finally convinced him to leave. All were horrified by the flood's destruction to the town, where their family had lived for more than 60 years.

"It's gone," Christina said. "The roads are gone. The places we used to swim are gone. All of it is gone."

Lyons Mayor Pro-tem Kirk Udovich said federal officials would assess the damage to infrastructure and have given no time-frame for when residents would be able to return.

Advertisement

"All we got is we were leaving our homes and we can't return," he said. "It could be two to four weeks. It could be much longer."

Ashley Ahrens and his 14-year-old son Bridger Keane sat in their packed car in the parking lot, wondering where they would be in upcoming days. They had packed the car with their most valuable items they had once gathered in preparation for a fire, and left most else, including much of his home office.

"We're staying at a friend's house the next couple nights, but after that I don't know where I'm going to go," Ahrens said. "It's incredibly stressful. ... I'm not even processing things very well."

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story